1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tablet having the shape of a capsule, as well as a process and a device to carry out preparation of said tablets.
2. State of the Art
It is well known that many pharmaceutical compositions, more particularly those in which it is necessary to mask taste and/or odor, or where the composition should reach intact stomach or intestine like drugs with sustained or retarded action, are prepared for administration in the form of capsules, comprising an outer envelope, which can be either hard or soft and generally made of gelatine or similar neutral materials, containing the granules or pellets of active substance or raw material.
However these capsules are rather big and many persons have difficulties to swallow them, the neutral material of the envelope gives rise to troubles either in the stomach or in the intestine, and their manufacture and preparation requires several operations and apparatuses, making said capsules relatively expensive in comparison with other simpler forms of conventional administration.
On the other hand it would be impossible to make a normal tablet containing granules or microgranules of active substance, more particularly those with sustained or retarded action which must not be damaged in order not to alter time and manner of releasing the active substance, because the conventional tabletting machines, exerting a strong compression on a wide and short discoid, would destroy integrity of most granules or microgranules.